Henry Botsford (d.1686) immigrated to Milford, Connecticut during or before 1638. Descendants and relatives lived in New England, New York, Illinois and elsewhere.

New Milford is located in western Connecticut, in the lower portion of Litchfield County. The original inhabitants of the area were the Potatuck who, along with other tribes, retreated as settlement of the region began--the first in the county being in Woodbury in 1672. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the land that later became New Milford was purchased from the Indians, and the first settler, John Noble, arrived from Massachusetts and built a home here in 1707. As the centuries progressed, so did the town. New Milford became a business center with many mills, shops, taverns, and other services. In stunning images and clear narrative, New Milford traces the history not only of the town itself but also of many of the families whose names are an integral part of the community, among them the Bostwicks, the Heacocks, and the Kings. The book follows the development of the town--its industry, such as New Milford Pottery, its educational facilities, such as Canterbury School, and its familiar places, such as the Wayside Inn.

Peter Pond, a fur trader, explorer, and amateur mapmaker, spent his life ranging much farther afield than Milford, Connecticut, where he was born and died (1740-1807). He traded around the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi and the Minnesota Rivers, and in the Canadian Northwest and is also well known as a partner in Montreal's North West Company and as mentor to Alexander Mackenzie, who journeyed down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Sea. Knowing eighteenth-century North America on a scale that few others did, Pond drew some of the earliest maps of western Canada. In this meticulous biography, David Chapin presents Pond's life as part of a generation of traders who came of age between the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. Pond's encounters with a plethora of distinct Native cultures over the course of his career shaped his life and defined his career. Whereas previous studies have caricatured Pond as quarrelsome and explosive, Chapin presents him as an intellectually curious, proud, talented, and ambitious man, living in a world that could often be quite violent. Chapin draws together a wide range of sources and information in presenting a deeper, more multidimensional portrait and understanding of Pond than hitherto has been available.